Chapter 2 - Delivering the Right Services and Benefits to the Canadians who need them
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Objective: Enhance the integrity of our social programs and achieve significant savings in program payments.
Service Canada issues about $70 billion in benefits to Canadians each year. Canadians expect us to ensure these benefits go to the right people in the right amounts for the right purposes. We are accountable for the integrity of these programs, which includes providing sound stewardship of public funds.
Since we are responsible for delivering such largescale programs and services, we need sound methodologies and dependable data to monitor and measure our achievements, create citizen-centred service, improve public trust in government, and save money for taxpayers.
Our three-year implementation plan has identified initiatives to strengthen accountability and transparency. These build on existing methods of ensuring accuracy and the experience of employees who deal with such problems as over-payments and mis-directed benefits.
We are taking steps to make Social Insurance Numbers more secure, and improving the Social Insurance Register to make sure the information it contains is as accurate as possible.
We are also expanding our risk analysis capacity and putting a quality framework in place to measure compliance and accuracy improvements in benefit delivery.
The strategy involves maximizing savings by providing more efficient service, while increasing measures to control inaccuracies or wrong payments.
The Results So Far
Managing Risks to Cut Costs
To reduce mistakes in calculating or issuing benefits, we are continuously improving our approaches to risk management. Our goal, first announced in Budget 2005, is to translate these improvements into significant savings for taxpayers over five years.
To achieve this goal, we are focusing more efforts on ensuring that people who should be paying Employment Insurance premiums are doing so, and confirming the eligibility of people who apply for benefits.
Strengthening the Social Insurance Number System
Strengthening the Social Insurance Number system is key to reducing errors and making sure the right benefits go to the right people.
Service Canada Fact
Our strategies for improved results include:
- more effective risk management
- higher quality work
- more reliable information
Sharing Information in Ontario
When somebody dies, grieving loved ones often have to deal with a number of government agencies while trying to cope with their loss.
Under a new agreement that will reduce this burden, the Ontario government will notify us about all deaths recorded in the province. This will allow us to stop payments to the deceased and start benefits such as Canada Pension Plan survivor benefits for an eligible spouse or partner automatically.
To achieve this we have taken measures to increase the security of Social Insurance Numbers, and make sure the information contained in the Social Insurance Register is always accurate.
The Social Insurance Register is a database of basic information on people with Social Insurance Numbers and we have already done a great deal to improve the quality of the information it contains. For example, we have improved the process of identifying people who have died so their files can be updated quickly and benefit payments stopped accordingly.
Creating a stronger Social Insurance Number system also allows us to relax other controls that produce fewer results. For example, Canadians used to have to give us evidence of their date of birth when they applied for Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security benefits. Now, this data is available in the Social Insurance Register, which means better service and improved integrity.
To make the Social Insurance Register even more accurate, we are developing more agreements with other governments, departments and agencies to automatically share information on people's births, deaths and other life changes.
With the Government of Ontario, we now offer an innovative, one-stop, online process where parents of newborns can register the birth of their child, and get a provincial birth certificate and Social Insurance Number in one application. In time, we would like to create a single automatic application process for all services relating to newborns, for example, by adding automatic registration for the Canadian Education Savings Grant and other child benefits.
Giving More Personalized Service
Canadians are now asked to provide the same information many times to the same government organization, often in relation to the same service or situation.
To reduce this run-around, we have begun work to establish a 'one-client view' for service delivery that will allow us to better integrate the information Canadians give us and provide citizens with onestop service. While applying the highest standards for protecting individuals' privacy and personal information, we will create better links between governments so that Canadians only have to provide us with information once.
Delivering Savings to Canadians
With our new strategies, we delivered millions in savings to taxpayers.
This 'one-client view' will be supported by initiatives to automate more of our processes and streamline the collection of information on births, deaths, marriages and immigration from our many government partners.
Offering More Automated Services
Technological improvements are allowing us to automate more of our processes. This helps reduce our operating costs, as well as the potential for payment errors and fraud relating to our programs and benefits. Some of the first steps include:
Making it easier for Canadians to apply online for Canada Pension Plan, Employment Insurance, Old Age Security and Guaranteed Income Supplement benefits;
Automating the processing of Employment Insurance and Canada Pension Plan claims;
Improving processes and tools to help Service Canada employees reduce the potential for errors such as overpayments and underpayments.
Privacy Matters to Service Canada
To meet the expectations of Canadians, we are working with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner to ensure we continue to use the best possible methods to protect personal information.
One-Stop Social Insurance Number Services
People with the right documents can get a Social Insurance Number on the spot through our improved "Social Insurance Number Rapid Access" pilot service, now available in selected Service Canada Centres across the country.
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